


Matador

by RunMarmiteRun



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 08:35:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20224918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunMarmiteRun/pseuds/RunMarmiteRun
Summary: Something good, oh something good tonight will make me forget about you for now...





	Matador

Waiting. I hated waiting. Five and Janine and Sam were doing their stuff. Here I was, with the other runners, waiting. I fingered the moljnir pendant I’d found and nervously checked the rifle again. I had my swords in case but we’d have to shoot when it was time. In formation. These tactics were like something out of World War I which wasn’t helped by the fact we we were all sitting on a steam engine.

We all had our headsets on but this was so odd. I’d wanted to do my usual battle tactics but it was pointed out multiple times by multiple people that this time it wasn’t necessarily just zoms and some elements of stealth would be required. I hated stealth. Never my strong suit. I circled my ankles and stretched out as best I could while waiting. By Freya’s locks! I hated waiting!

I could hear Sam asking if this had always been part of the plan. We had fast zoms under our control right now, and my roommate, well, let’s be honest, my friend Five was right behind them using a tone box to shepherd them on to their tasks. So many gone for this. X, Archie, Sara...best not think about them right now. They’d fallen in battle anyway, what had happened to Sara wasn’t clear but they’d been fighting was what Five had told me. That frantic mess leading up to this. But she’d not been a traitor.

I shifted uncomfortably. Harry’s train was faster than walking or even running from New Canton and they’d outfitted us with weapons. I had this strange sense of being in a bizarre apocalyptic World War I transport. The wheels clicked along the rails and I felt the swaying motion. I had seen the vague flash of momentary - what - envy? Hard to tell - but something in Sam’s eyes when he’d been told some of us were to go meet Harry at the track. He seemed busy now, though, and here we were being carted along like a load of potatoes.

What I truly hated was that the Major had in some ways betrayed us. The secret plan? Not secret now, obviously, but...she was supposed to be our leader. Five seemed to take it in stride but then again Five was in many ways just running on adrenaline still. I felt the train moving along under us. Such a strange feeling...I hadn’t been on a train in ages, not since I was a child, and this one...well, it felt like I should be in some kind of get up ready to salute Queen Victoria at the next stop rather than get off to fight zombies. Of course, life often felt surreal nowadays. My mind flashed back suddenly to the last battle, watching the zoms drop, then looking over and seeing X having a grand mal seizure. She’d fallen, for a moment I’d thought she’d been bitten or something. Then her head had jerked back and suddenly she’d gone all stiff, then... The train made a slight swerve and I was back here and now as I slipped sideways, the image of X vomiting and the blood from where she’d bitten her own tongue pouring down her face still hanging in my mind. Job to do. Odin’s eye! There was a job to do. I dreaded in some ways the idea that we might be facing other people this time. I’d faced zoms so many times but they weren’t alive, sometimes it even seemed a mercy to put them down.

Through the headset I heard a commotion going on. By all Valhalla! Something was going wrong! I tried almost instinctively to jump to my feet but then realized I was still more than a mile away on a moving train. I hated waiting. What was going on? Janine and Sam were strangely encouraging Five to talk to Van Ark. What was wrong with them? Sam sounded nervous at least but Janine...why did she always sound so calm? Clattering - by all the gods, was Five in a room with him? Those scars on her, I knew at least a few of them were because of Van Ark...was she going to be alright? You couldn’t kill him!

Clattering and the sound of...a kitchen timer? I was trying to listen but between the static and the steady click of the wheels and hiss of steam it was difficult to piece together what was happening. Also, Harry was starting to slow the train. I grasped at my Moljnir pendant again as orders began to be passed down the row to me.

“Quickly and quietly down from the escarpment toward the main front. We have to get into position. Don’t sprint this portion, go straight and keep in cover. Mind your footing, we don’t need someone out from a twisted ankle here. We think the woods are clear of zoms but keep sharp eyes in case.”

We rolled off the train, sort of a controlled parachute tumble from me but something more awkward from some of the others. I hit the ground then rolled up and began to run. I could hear the sounds of zoms and gunshots just over the ridge, and through my headset... a jumble of commands from Nadia and the commotion coming from Five...Van Ark threatening, some kind of commotion about high fives from Sam and Janine...then no more thinking, we were in it.

“Come on, guys! For Archie! For Esteban! Runners thirty-three through thirty-nine, wheel left now and fire!” Nadia came through loud and clear. I sprinted in, the stench of zoms overwhelming. Here and there I heard the crack of gunshots beside me. I saw someone in a uniform coming at me...not another runner...without thinking I fired. It was right through the eye, I was so used to going for the head...fresh brains, blood spurting, the strangeness of a metallic smell from fresh blood coming at me. I swerved to the right to avoid the body falling.

It was a mixture of zoms and humans. Most of the humans were running. I spied a disheveled figure coming out of a ruined corner, I knew I should probably fire but he looked unarmed and already wounded. I raised my weapon anyway, trying to steel myself. This was the enemy. “Thirty six, to starboard!” I didn’t know who it was and who in the nine days shouts about starboard? I frantically looked to my left and right as though in busy traffic - there! A fast zom headed straight for me. I turn and fire, without any hesitation. Mouldering grey putrefaction splatters the rubble and I kick the grasping hand away from my ankle, still twitching, as I turn back towards the opening. The shifty bloke I’d seen a moment before is gone but someone or something else is coming. I ready myself. Even if they’re living this is to protect ourselves.

I sight along the barrel and hesitant with my finger on the trigger - that’s short red hair coming into view. Thor’s hammer, it’s Five! She’s got that look in her eye, and she’s - I look she’s chasing after that shifty wounded fellow. Bollocks of all the gods and the frost giants! That was him, surely a head shot would have at least slowed him and maybe brain tissue wouldn’t have regeneration, part of this was supposed to have been getting something into him to stop his recovery power and he had surely looked wounded. Was he - was he headed towards a plane? I started trying to catch up with Five, fighting my way through clusters of zoms. I gave up on the rifle, pulling my sword off my back. I was more comfortable with it anyway and it would make it easier for the others to tell I wasn’t a zom.

I could hear radio commands coming at Five now as I struggled to clear zoms, hacking randomly without paying too much attention. Twitching arms fell to the ground then a body clunking next to it as I awkwardly hacked. Five was being told that Van Ark was headed for a plane. She veered away for it, and started heading up the hill. Why would...ah, there! I saw the cluster of zoms headed in to the base of the hill. I could help. I saw 39 still shooting and frantically waved. I ran over, the hardest sprint I had done in a while.

This was the thick of it. I felt pain shooting up my calves and into my side. Not a stitch, not now. Zoms were clustering and Five was pumping ahead, steady but strong as usual, looked like she was headed for the top of the hill. I waved at 39, we had to keep things clear. “For Odin! To Glory and Valhalla!” I tried to shout to get the zoms to turn to me but it came out in sort of strangled hoarse gasps. It was enough though. Some of them started to turn. I hacked, it wasn’t fair to call it swordsmanship at this rate. I felt globs spatter me. 39 was shooting. Bollocks! That nearly hit me...a bullet slammed into a zom next to me. I could vaguely see Five picking something up. There was a loud noise, some kind of shouting over the coms. Was that an aeroplane skimming over low? A little private plane? Really? The distraction was bad, I narrowly missed being bitten and just barely blocked by whacking with my sword hilt. This was getting difficult. Then 39 was in with me, an axe out. Must be out of bullets. Five was standing, aiming - was that a rocket launcher? Looking calm and concentrated. The zoms were pulling away from us, turning and headed towards the noise of the plane. Five stood. Sam was getting panicked sounding on the coms. Five fires. She’ll surely miss? That can’t be right, looks like she’s shooting past the plane...no wait, I see...of scoured, she’s shot for the trajectory of travel. Wait, where did she learn to do that? The plane is hit! 

I chase the zoms. Five turns, a grin spreading across her filthy face, I can hear all the celebratory cheering and madness going on through the coms. She calmly reloads and waved at me and 39 to veer off. Farewell, zoms. I can see most of the packs of zoms are gone.

Oh, that was a bit excessive. But I suppose firing a rocket launcher isn’t something you get to do every day. And it does look like something good. There’s bits and pieces flying everywhere. Five stands, silhouetted for a moment, then in a strange fit of showmanship takes a bow, like a matador in a bullring. As she stands, the sun catches her hair and the sweat glistens catching her scars in the light. We’ve won for now.


End file.
